Press release -
Heart - the mystery of its internal micro muscles revealed. Nature publishes a study on the function of myocardial trabeculae
Milan, 20 August 2020 - A study published in Nature sheds new light on a previously unknown role myocardial trabeculae. Trabeculae anomalous nature appears related to the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.
The question is what are trabeculae and which is their function?
Trabeculae cover the interior of the ventricular chambers of the adult human heart with a complex network of thin cylindrical muscle structures.
Since the 15th century, anatomists (including Leonardo da Vinci) have described cardiac trabeculae and hypothesised different functions, but never fully understanding the reason for their presence and their function.
It is known that the formation of trabeculae starts during the heart embryological development and appears to be essential for the growth of the foetal heart. As the heart develops, the presence of trabeculae decreases without completely disappearing. In fact the trabeculae constitute a significant percentage (12-17 per cent) of the adult human heart mass. Why?
This answer is given by an international and multidisciplinary group composed of researchers in cardiology, genetics, biology, bioinformatics and computer science, and the biomedical engineering team, led by Prof. Maria Laura Costantino, from Politecnico di Milano, Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering "Giulio Natta" . The study convincingly demonstrates that trabeculae are not simply residual developmental elements but are crucial for the adult hearts correct performance, so that a causal relationship between trabecular morphology and risk of cardiovascular disease was found.
This result was achieved by using an innovative approach.
The contradiction between their presence in the heart and the lack of a convincing scientific explanation led the research group to carry out a synergistic work integrating the development of computational biomechanic models (the Politecnico di Milano specific task) with genomic analysis and fractal analysis of trabecular morphology applied to the treatment and analysis of clinical images, filed in a UK biobank, related to more than 18,000 individuals.
Understanding the pathways that control the development of such complex biological structures provides a solid basis for exploring new causal mechanisms in common cardiovascular diseases.
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